


Bingo Prompt: Trapped In a Small Space with a Fever

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angry Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, Injury, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker Friendship, Sick Character, Sick Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sickfic, Tim Stoker Lives (The Magnus Archives), Tim is Trapped in the Buried Instead of Daisy AU, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: i can have a little “Tim lives and is trapped in the Buried instead of Daisy and Jon goes to rescue him with his burnt hand and missing rib which actually doesn't come up but in my mind it's hurty" AU... as a treat…
Comments: 11
Kudos: 221





	Bingo Prompt: Trapped In a Small Space with a Fever

I can have a little “Tim lives and is trapped in the Buried instead of Daisy and Jon goes to rescue him AU…” as a treat… 

With the dirt pressing their clothing so tightly to their bodies and with no other sounds to drown it out, Tim can hear Jon shivering. He actually does a double-take, so to speak, almost unable to believe it. 

“Are you… shivering?” he asks, and there’s a long beat, longer than he’s used to even taking into account the amount of difficulty that the Choke is adding to speaking. 

“S’cold,” Jon replies simply, weakly. Tim hasn’t been aware of a sensation other than the crushing weight of dirt in the entire six months he’s been here. He hasn’t felt hungry, or tired, or hot or cold or pained or comfortable or ANYTHING, aside from bored and weighed down. He takes a survey of his own body, now, and even with conscious thought, he certainly doesn’t feel cold: if anything, he’s stifled, his own body heat cycling, stale and warm, between his skin and the dirt. 

Tim lets it go, assuming that it’s just a difference in perception, until he can hear Jon’s teeth chattering. 

“Jesus, Jon, how cold are you?” he asks, reaching out for his hand. 

It had taken them a long time to touch, for a lot of reasons. At first, Tim hadn’t wanted to even try. The fact that Jon had come after him didn’t erase the months he’d spent stalking him, suspecting him,  _ fearing _ him. It had hurt; it had all hurt, a lot. 

Eventually, though, as Jon quietly endured his insults and rants and accusations, as Jon apologized over and over for everything he’d done, as he stopped making excuses and stopped defending himself even when Tim knew he wasn’t being fair, as he coughed and sputtered on dirt which he inhaled every time Tim laid into him until he cried—eventually, he decided Jon had suffered enough. Listening to Jon sob, incoherent and wordless, as he blamed himself for losing Sasha and not even noticing that she’d been taken, had been Tim’s own breaking point. Hearing it out of Jon’s mouth, the one thing that Tim had decided he could never forgive Jon for, had made it clear that Jon was just as much a victim in this as the rest of them were, and perhaps had lost just as much, too. 

Jon was just as Buried Deep as Tim was in this, the fear, the grief, the pain, the loss. He’d pulled away. But when Tim had threatened to be gone for good, Jon had come after him. Jon had told him he wouldn’t lose anyone else and he’d strained for hours, the pain and exhaustion clear in his voice, to reach out for him, passing out from the exertion as soon as he’d brushed Tim’s pinkie finger with his own. 

Tim’s hand grasps Jon’s, expecting to find it cold like a corpse—fitting, wouldn’t it be, to die here in this casket? The work was already done, not like there would be anyone on the other side to plan their funerals, anyway, to mourn them, to bury them--and shocked when he found it warm, overly so, and dry. He walks his fingers down Jon’s palm to his wrist, where the skin is just as hot, and puts pressure on the pulse point, finding it fast and weak. 

“Are you feeling alright?” he asks, then realizes it’s a stupid question. “Aside from the obvious.” Jon doesn’t answer, and Tim is horrified. He waits a long moment, calls his name, calls it again, squeezes his hand a few times, until Jon groans quietly. “Jon? Can you hear me?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Oh, thank Christ. Did you pass out on me?” 

“No,” Jon denies firmly. “No. Why?” 

“I asked you a question; I was calling your name.” 

Jon hesitates. “What was the question?”

Well. That answers that. 

“What’s wrong with you? You’re feverish, I think. What the hell could you even get, in here?” 

Jon sighs. “There’s a, a burn. My hand.” 

“Shit, Jon. Is it bad?” 

He sighs, coughs out some dirt. “It’s… not good.” 

Tim can’t pretend he doesn’t understand why Jon hadn’t mentioned it earlier. What could they have done about it? What difference would it have made? They couldn’t have kept it dry, kept it clean; couldn’t have even done anything to keep him comfortable. Not to mention, Tim hadn’t so much as allowed him a word edgewise for weeks, and once he had, Jon had been terrified of misstepping and ruining it. 

“Infected, then?” Tim asks. The fact that Jon has already drifted off answers his question.

For days, there’s nothing he can do except listen as Jon’s condition worsens. Somehow, it’s lonelier now, with Jon’s unmarked hand in his, than it had been when he’d been properly alone. Jon is losing coherency, losing energy. He often wakes with no idea where he is, confused and terrified, too far away for Tim’s words to reach him until he passes out from hyperventilation again. Other times, he wakes believing Tim still hates him, crying and apologetic, and Tim can do nothing but reassure him that he doesn’t, that they’re friends again, that he never, deep down, had ever convinced that last bit of his heart to hate him, anyway. 

But mostly, he just sleeps. 

It’s an incredible feat when Jon manages to pull them out of the Buried. It happens well after Tim had given up hope for the second time, after Jon had convinced him that perhaps he could believe they’d make it out of here alive. When he starts to move, Tim argues because he’s seen enough movies to know what this is, has been holding Jon’s slow-cooking hand for long enough to recognize it: the scene where the hero uses his dying breath to rescue the heroine from certain death. 

Tim is no damsel, and Jon is certainly no action hero. 

But then they’re on the ground, gasping for breath, the both of them, unable to move for exhaustion and muscle wasting. Tim screams like he’s wanted to do for so long. He tastes dirt, then copper. 

When he wakes in hospital, he’s told that Jon is in a coma, that his brain is working but his body is not. Tim’s got a heartbeat and Jon doesn’t. Jon climbed out of a coffin only to die, technically, physically. Mourning would be too confusing, so instead, he replaces that with his default. 

Once again, Tim hates Jonathan Sims. 


End file.
